September 20, 2014

It was only a matter of time - anyone watching the last season of Boardwalk Empire or the first of Leftovers on Sky Atlantic via Now TV is in for a surprise. Sky is raising the monthly fee from £4.99 to £6.99 from October 16th. That's before those two series finish their current runs. Now you may call me a cynic but isn't that just bloody typical??

What's this? A Virgin Media App that's for Android only?? Can it be true?
Apparently so. Wifi Buddy is not on Apple devices so Android fans fill your boots:

Meet your WiFi Buddy

We all want superfast speeds when surfing the internet on our mobiles but sometimes it slows up when you’re out of a WiFi zone.
That’s why we’ve created our Virgin Media WiFi Buddy app – exclusively for Virgin Mobile customers – that automatically connects you to public WiFi hotspots. It means you won’t eat into any of your mobile data and it’s much quicker than 3G, too.
The app actively hooks you up to free access to tens of thousands of WiFi hotspots in the UK and more than 19 million worldwide. Sweet!
It’s only available on Android handsets for now, so visit the link below to download from Google’s Play Store, and stream to your heart’s content!

September 13, 2014

Today, Virgin Media has unveiled a significant update to the UKs largest connected TV platform, with a new look on its way for our 2.3 million plus Virgin Media TiVo customers.

The visual style reflects our new brand identity but also introduces HTML 5, with a higher definition interface that paves the way for better access for app developers. For example, we’re working with Opera to bring its app store to TiVo – more details will follow once the rollout is complete.

And here's a sneak peek:

The update also includes the introduction of our new ‘What to Watch Now’ feature, which presents you with a list of shows you may enjoy that have recently started or are about to start, categorised into kids shows, movies, sports content and programmes that are popular on TV.

As we approach TiVo’s fourth birthday, it remains the most advanced service around, uniquely integrating the best of the web with entertainment such as Netflix and YouTube. TiVo’s single search and intelligent recommendation engine enables viewers to rapidly find what they want to watch and discover new shows, all within a Virgin Media environment with no need to swap remotes, leads or TV inputs. It learns what customers watch, and love, to promote more relevant content.

We'll be rolling out the new TiVo software update across few regions from next week. The full roll out for rest of our TiVo customers will start from October and will be complete by end of the year.

September 12, 2014

TiVo in the US has announced the TiVo Mega which has a ridiculous 24TB of storage capacity, capable of holding up to 26,000 hours of SD or 4,000 hours of HD.
The Mega also includes six tuners and in the US will have whole-home networking capability (Ethernet and MoCA); and will provide universal search capability across cable, video-on-demand and web apps (including YouTube and Netflix).
The TiVo Mega will be available in the US only early 2015 at a price that is expected to be around $5,000 (£3.2k), although final pricing is still to be determined.
“Mega is TiVo’s high-end product meant for the ultra-entertainment enthusiast,” say TiVo.
“Mega marries unprecedented storage with the all-in-one approach to live, recorded, on-demand television that gives consumers what they want on any screen, wherever they are.”
I think it's fair to say that this won't be standard issue from Virgin Media...